


sharp silver of a perfect note

by oriflamme



Series: the bitter and rooted love [1]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Child Death, Depersonalization, Gen, Scarring, Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation, emotional suppression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 01:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16187036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriflamme/pseuds/oriflamme
Summary: The others fight desperately, or viciously, or bravely. Some of them emit strange, strangled shouts. One after another, as it makes its way up the jagged pass, it sees those quicker siblings rush to the top.One after another, the desperate and the cruel and the bold reach the summit – and fall, necks snapped before they hit the ground. The hollow rattle of carapaces raining down never ceases.





	sharp silver of a perfect note

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【中译】锋利之刃，徒有其名](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18287114) by [XXFredricaXX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/XXFredricaXX/pseuds/XXFredricaXX)



> Ah yes. Ángst. It's what I live for.
> 
> Edit 10/5 - added some lines, touched up some grammar.

It emerges, deep in the dark.

(There are many gods in the world. They spark and flicker and gutter, vainglorious, while the Void waits below, patient.)

It is not the first to emerge, nor the last. The black shell cracked and split apart an age and a moment ago, sluicing void, under the claws of those first to stir. The first ones have their pick of the discarded nails and the rest of the detritus sharp enough to be fashioned into weapons; the walls of the passageways that lead up out of the dark are jagged and battered, the shattered fragments of carapace able to slice deep into one's hand where they jut outward. The pale, rounded heads of the dead are worn smooth underfoot, the carapaces packed so tightly that the footing feels deceptively solid.

(But below the smooth surface, it is all hollow. Scraped clean. The Void yawns beneath.)

It absorbs its surroundings as still more drop free of the black egg. But there is nothing to absorb but the dark, and the pale shells of the dead crunching underfoot.

Perhaps, if it stayed there, it would've been nothing at all.

Instead, it follows the winding tunnels until it finds the first of its dead hatchmates. Almost nothing distinguishes the empty, blank eyed husk from the carapaces packed into the wall except its placement, and the dull, beaten metal of the nail beside it.

It takes up the nail, and does not look back. Those who come in its wake are irrelevant; what matters are those above.

(The very last, though -)

It climbs.

-

White carapaces already plug the tunnel exit. Black ink streams down the walls, leaking from cracked shells. Some of them still struggle, feebly, their limbs and their will too weak to free themselves from the crushing weight of the dead as they bleed out.

It draws itself back, then shoves upward. It takes a few lunges before it punches a hole to the surface, the husks clattering as horns snap off, dry carapace caves in, and hollow heads roll away.

The air that filters through the hole is just as stale and thin as that below. But it moves. It's more than the sound of those beyond fighting, though that echoes in the vast, cavernous space. A current stirs the air - a draft, far above.

It crawls free, nail in hand. A pale body falls and slams into the ground with a shuddering **_crunch_** , so close that the grey drapes of the dead sibling's cloak brush the side of its face. It can see easily in the gloom: the sharp sparks striking off nails as the others clash, fighting over the rare, scattered outcroppings and footholds that lead up the side of the sheer abyss.

At the top, so far away, a pale light beckons in the dark.

It does not need to be first.

It needs to be _perfect_.

The others fight desperately, or viciously, or bravely. Some of them emit strange, strangled shouts. A few confront it on its way up, and it dispatches them with quiet efficiency if they refuse to move aside. One after another, as it makes its way up the jagged pass, it sees those quicker siblings rush to the top.

One after another, the desperate and the cruel and the bold reach the summit - and fall, necks snapped before they hit the ground. The hollow rattle of carapaces raining down never ceases.

(Their shades watch, with luminous eyes.

Nothing less than perfection will do.)

By the time it reaches that distant cliff, nothing remains but the stragglers and the dead. Cuts and chips notch the surface of its shell, its garment in tatters, but all of that is irrelevant. It lands on the edge in a crouch, and finds cold, black metal under its feet rather than shell or earth. It rises - lets the nail hang loose in its claws, because none of the others are here to obstruct it anymore.

A Pale King stands before him, wrapped in white. Six spires crown his ash-pale mask. He inspects it with cool, lightless black eyes; it can see itself reflected in the facets.

It could still be found wanting. It waits, claws clasped around the hilt of the nail beneath the cover of its cloak. Any one of the marks on its shell or some defect in its posture could be taken as evidence of its imperfection.

"No cost too great," the Pale King murmurs, to himself. He reaches out with a hand that has snapped the necks of dozens of its siblings, the pinprick tap of his slender white claws light as he lifts its chin to examine it more closely. It does not move. The King's voice is soft, almost subvocal, and yet the sound resonates in its skull like a stricken bell. It echoes through the abyss. "No mind to think, no will to break…"

It lets him tilt its head all the way back. For an instant its body, weary from the battle and the climb, threatens to tremble; it quells the weakness before it can ruin it.

Under the throbbing note of the King's voice, it hears something else. A faint scuffle from below, distinct from the clatter of the last bodies tumbling and striking the ledges beneath. But it does not move to look.

At last, the Pale King lets his hand fall. It falls back into a neutral stance, awaiting the judgement.

"No voice to cry suffering. Born of God and Void. You shall seal the blinding light that plagues their dreams." The King inclines his head slightly, any expression sealed behind the smooth shell of his mask. "You are the Vessel. The Hollow Knight."

Then the King turns, and glides away, through a baroque, arching gate.

With the faintest vibration in the metal, it feels something hit the edge of the cliff behind it. Its folded claws twitch tighter around the hilt of the nail.

It should follow the Pale King, compliant with his unspoken will. It should not look back.

It does.

One final hatchmate clings to the edge, its soft body dangling over the abyss. It meets its empty-eyed stare, the inky black behind their masks very different from the eyes of the King, and knows that this one is also perfect. It ascended, patient and methodical and silent - and came too late.

It did, in the end, need to be first. It just hadn't realized.

The abyss begins to shake. The light of the Pale King's entrance shudders. The distance between it and the King widens, a gap, a chasm that might still widen an unforgivable fraction further.

It turns and follows the King. The cavern entrance collapses. The King seals it himself.

_Our pure Vessel has ascended. Beyond lies only the refuse and regret of its creation. We shall enter that place no longer._

When it stares blankly past the Pale King, back into the abyss, it sees no trace of its last-born sibling.

(And that was the first flaw.)

-

The acolytes of the White Palace buff its carapace until no trace of the pit remains. It sits perfectly still, claws folded in its lap, as they polish away the inky stains left by its siblings and the faint chips in its face with grit-cloth and scrapers, and hone the serrated ends of its horns until the points are symmetrical.

None of them speak to it. When the Pale King comes to inspect the Vessel, they drop low and speak only in murmurs, eyes averted. Unlike the Black Palace above, only those who are seamlessly attuned to the Pale King's will may enter the White Palace. This space has been refined of all impurities, cut off from the rest of the King's domain by a sacred seal, so that nothing can contaminate the Vessel with outside influence or sway it from its purpose.

No one here will ever speak to it, save the King.

"Come," the Pale King says. His voice is undeniable; his words are absolute. "Train. We will engrave the first of the ritual brands come morn."

It inclines its head - the faintest nod.

In that flicker between its head bobbing and coming back up, the Pale King's mien shifts. His mask tightens, eyes sharp and cold, and the Vessel tenses. Not still, but stiff, rigid, as it parses the disapproval that tinges the King's regal bearing.

The Vessel straightens. The moment passes.

It cannot be found wanting like that. Not again.

-

The Palace echoes with an absence. It recognizes the void where something used to be - a being the acolytes talk around in their flittering, whispered conversations; a person who is no longer here. She was such a fundamental part of the White Palace that her lack leaves a palpable gap.

The balconies are lined with pale grey stone and white marble; the thorny gates are silver, the floors are a dark, glossy tumbled metal. Light refracts sharply through the crystal of the windows, so intense that it fractures one's sight into blind, splintering shards. But twined with the palace, as much as part of it as the cold, black iron of the outer walls, is one immense, silvery root. Its pale branches support the metal palace over the bright abyss; its greying leaves form crowns of ashen purple and green, its vines draping down over the balconies and pillars; its thorns guard the deepest halls, including the throne room itself.

(And a room that the King will not enter.)

The Pale King takes it past the thorns. None of the acolytes are permitted in the king's study and the other royal suites, though they may approach the throne room when it is unsealed. Every morning, it sits in the position the King requires to do his work and composes itself. It grows practiced at repressing the slightest reflexive response to the touch of the athame, as the King consults his arcane eggs and tablets and carves the Seals of Binding directly into the Vessel's soft carapace. The stone on which it sits is surrounded by iron grates to drain the inky fluid away before it can stain the King's wrapped, gossamer wings. It does not flinch or falter, hands folded under its cloak; does not waver even when its head begins to feel distant and dizzy from the leaking wounds.

It learns to read and memorize the slightest, most subtle shifts in the Pale King’s demeanor - the faintest twitch of a wing or cant of his crown scrupulously monitored for signs of disapproval. It balances on the taut, metal cord of the King’s choice. At any moment it could be found wanting. Could become a regret, to be discarded as refuse.

The whorls engraved in its shell form gnarled, raised scars that make the Vessel freeze the first time the Pale King displays them before a mirror. They look different, cramped, compared to the elegant lines in the King's books, and for a moment it thinks that it has healed - wrong. That this has crippled it in its purpose. It cannot breathe. It dares not look directly up at the King - such a gesture, however slight, might draw that disapproval once more - but it can stare at their reflections in the mirror, the King half again its height, pristine, full of grace.

"Perfect," the King says, resting one pale hand between its horns. Despite his reserve, the satisfaction in his demeanor is clear. "They should scale proportionally for the final molt instar."

It cannot relax. But the Pale King's hand remains on its head for a few moments more, and it soaks in that approval. When the hand falls away and the King sweeps away to consult his next text, the Vessel relaxes the claw it clenched tightly around the wrist of the other, clamped down in an iron grip until the shell crunched inward.

The deep gouges dug into its carapace by its own claws fade within the day. The seals never will.

-

It is not sure when it realizes the change in its own thoughts. When _it cannot feel_ becomes _it **must** not feel, _ a silent mantra that it recites to itself every moment of the day.

When it stops perfecting its forms and strikes not because it is the Pale King's will, but to chase that faint flicker of approval - _pride_ \- that sparks beyond the King's smooth mask when it fights well.

The realization makes it nauseous, and that nausea is a failure in and of itself. Recursive, repulsive. It tries to trace it back to the source - to find that point where it stopped being hollow - but cannot find it. The Pale King wanted a Vessel without mind, without will, without voice, and sacrificed much to achieve that. It cannot fail.

(It does not know how to stop thinking. Even _this_ , right now -)

There is only one way to salvage itself. It must be utterly without imperfection: refine itself, carve the hideous tumor of emotion out of its shell. Every movement is scrutinized. Flinching, fidgeting - a hundred potential points of failure. It becomes hyperaware of its own posture (it must never slouch, no matter how deep the fatigue), its form as poised when standing beside the Pale King as when it trains with the nail. When it walks quickly, it tends to lean forward; upon catching this, it finds its balance point and holds itself upright. When it is not training, the King always keeps it close. The safest, easiest position to maintain during long hours by the King's side becomes its default: hands clasped beneath the concealing folds of its garment, as though still holding a nail, staring straight ahead. It digs its claws into its own wrist where the marks won't show, cutting off any further emotional response before it can surface.

It only need be a thing without feelings. A tool, perfectly balanced, perfectly poised. Nothing more. That is what the Pale King wants, and the Vessel wants - so awfully _wants_ \- for him to be happy. No pain matters compared to that. Even on the days it nearly snaps its own wrist for want of something unnameable, there is nothing it desires more.

The acolytes replace the dull nail from the abyss with one carved from smooth, pale ore; it never sees the original again. It trains alone, always, on an arena of fragile glass panes and dark metal platforms, cutting down shadows and moulded automatons. The Pale King comes and observes every day, and it fine-tunes its routine by carefully marking the King's moods. It pushes itself further, faster, until its legs tremble like a plucked string - and then drives itself harder still. It cannot stumble. It cannot droop, or hesitate. Failure is unacceptable, and so it never fails. Every form note-perfect, every sweep of its nail efficient, with clarity of purpose. 

None of it means anything until the King tilts his crown back, eyes closed against the strange earthlight, and beckons for the Vessel to join him on the balcony. 

-

The King does not leave the White Palace. Matters of state have largely fallen by the wayside. No one informs it directly; the Vessel draws conclusions on its own, from what scattered hints it can glean from the King. An infection of the mind. A bright plague that bloats the carapace with cysts, sending those afflicted into a coma from which they wake mindless and violent. Thousands of bugs have fallen to it, and the demesne above sinks slowly into ruin. Those who still can either forsake the kingdom or look to their King and his Great Knights to save them.

The Vessel is his solution. It will absorb the source of the infection, containing it within its emptiness. Three powerful, potent allies of the King have sworn their lives to seal the Vessel away, end the plague, and allow Hallownest to last eternal.

(At night, when it allows itself to fall limp and _rest_ , guilt claws at its insides like a living thing. It sits upright, vigilant once more, arranged in a neutral pose for the benefit of the acolytes who will arrive at dawn, and very carefully does not scream.

Once, it tries. But the empty, hollow huff that emerges from behind its mask cannot be called a sound. Its guilt redoubles. 

The scars carved into its body ache, as though the seals can sense its deficiencies.)

-

The Pale King speaks of her only once.

It follows him through the austere corridors. It stands at poised attention when the King sits. It never thinks much of the cloths that cover seats and wardrobes, or of the dust that the acolytes diligently clear away in rooms that no one ever uses. The elegant, chiaroscuro halls of the Palace have been largely uninhabited for as a long as the Vessel has resided here.

It is not uncommon for the Pale King to summon it to his side, and then concern himself with other matters. It always waits dutifully for his attention to return to it. The King seems distracted behind his mask of indifference, this time. He hesitates mid stride, his distant gaze lingering on certain windows and alcoves as though seeing something else. The Vessel remains in step with him with prescient ease - measures its steps so that when the King glides to a slow halt, lost in thought, it slows at the same time.

Then, abruptly, the King's jaw tightens. He crosses the hall in three ground-eating strides, and enters the room that used to be hers.

The pale root breaches the metal here. The room is overgrown with pearly grey vines and pale, silver-purple blossom that drape down from the ceiling. A single throne sits before a raised basin full of still, clear water. The seat of the throne alone is higher than the Vessel's head, shaped to hold a being very different from those it has seen in its time here.

The Pale King stops before the throne, but does not sit. He gazes into the water instead. Light filters through the hanging vines; the shadow that the Vessel casts stretches much further than it should, compared to the King's.

He bends his neck, like his crown of horns weighs heavy on his slim shoulders, and for a long time does not speak. The Vessel tries not to enjoy the silent companionship. These quiet moments are something that no one else shares with the King. It is hard not to hold them close in its chest, like bright motes of warmth, just as it clutches the rare memories of a hand resting on its head, or steadying its carapace as the King slices the knife through tender shell.

"Thrice, we attempted it," the King says, and it forces such pathetic thoughts out of mind. "Born of Wyrm, born of Root, heart of Void - but the exact proportions of divine substance for an optimal result required experimentation."

The King bends his head further still, and for the first time in months the Vessel twitches out of turn, unable to completely repress the urge to reach out. It tangles its claws together beneath the cover of its cloak, where they can tense and shake undetected. Never before has it seen the King look so faded, so drained - as though by entering this room and speaking of that absent presence, he has grown fragile. He might shatter for grief.

"She could have continued. The shores of the Abyss never lack for Void. No. It was I who weakened, whose essence waned…" The Pale King trails off. He sets his hands on either side of the basin, claws slowly tightening until the shell of his knuckles creaks. For a moment, it thinks that the King might overturn the basin and shatter the tranquility of the room; it braces itself, though it has never seen the King lose control in such a way before.

But he releases the basin with a long, low sigh. "Three thousand hollowed-out children," the Pale King says, "a thousand for each round of trials. Scoured clean of all trace of soul with electricity, so that when the liquid Void was introduced to the egg it would not be fouled or tainted by personality. There were failures, of course - but no sacrifice could be too great." A sharp, bitter laugh escapes him, and the Vessel nearly jolts again at the unfamiliar sound. "But she said to draw upon my essence again in such a way would erase me. That she came so far only out of love and duty, and would not - could not stay. She was…ashamed. Of what we had done."

Then the King falls silent, and does not move for a long, long time.

It cannot reach out. It cannot take the Pale King's hand with its small claws and squeeze reassurance. It cannot lean in and press hearteningly against his side, nor let its breath catch in piercing wonder at the word _children_.

It cannot do anything at all. The pale, slender hands that hang limp by the King's side are the same hands that snapped the necks of its siblings with a hollow, brisk _krkk_ that echoes in its memory a dozen times over.

The Pale King does not want a child. He wants a vessel, hollow and pure and perfect. He wants a sacrifice. That is all it can give.

It presses its hands against its own chest and tries not to pretend that one of its claws belongs to another.

(The Pale King leaves that room, shoulders huddled, and broods at the balcony.

He glances back at the Vessel, and his resolve returns.)

-

The molt is artificially induced.

It has no natural instinct to follow in this process; the Void is a formless thing. A room is already prepared deep in the heart of the Palace, lit with a pale, charged green light. The acolytes strip and scrape it clean one last time, and the King oversees as the Vessel is immersed in thick, stinging syrup within a glass chrysalis. Its carapace prickles, the white shell of its mask slipping oddly as the syrup seeps between its exoskeleton and what lies beneath.

It feels the back of its head begin to split open, and the world goes dark as the inky black of its body expands to fill the tank.

-

It emerges, callow and softer than before, a jumble of limbs that are too long. The acid syrup of the tank sluices away as its carapace hardens in this new shape: the rigid black shell of its legs and arms thin and segmented, its serrated horns heavier where they've formed the base of the new shape of its skull. The seals carved deep into its old shell now perfectly fill the spaces between the seams of its carapace.

It stands, unsure of its stilted limbs, and finds that it now towers over the Pale King. The sudden dissonance sets it off balance and it freezes in place.

"It's time," the Pale King says.

-

They rinse and dry its old, ragged, outgrown garments, then drape it in white. The pale armor locks over its shoulders and segmented plates layer over its chest, polished and gleaming. The anchors for the chains that will come are already built into the armor. The white cloak envelops its new, slender carapace completely, and the acolytes reverently deliver a thin, pale nail, long enough for its extended arm. A pure nail for a pure Vessel, the ore etched with sharp lines and humming with latent power.

It laces its fingers over the hilt, as it did so long ago, and lets its head bow fractionally under the new weight of its horns. This is permissible, for now. The Pale King is distracted with the final calculations, with the missives being sent to the three distant dreamers and to arrange transportation to the temple where it will all end, and so the Vessel can take this one last moment to center itself. It imagines itself another inanimate part of the palace - its limbs cold black metal, its head polished white stone.

Once it is sealed away, it will never see the Pale King again. Its traitorous thoughts were mere indulgence; it can still discard them and make itself hollow in truth. It can - it _can_ -

-

(It cannot tell if the tension in its stomach is anticipation, or dread.)

-

They ascend.

The royal tram takes them most of the way up through the kingdom's many strata. It does not allow itself to look out the windows and gaze at the strangeness of the outside world. It cannot afford to be distracted by such trivialities. It cannot even channel the nervous energy that curdles inside it by practicing with its new blade; there is not enough room in the tram. And the Pale King watches the Vessel with intent, his angular, faceted eyes rapt as he fixates on it. The scrutiny is not unwelcome. If this is the last time - if it will never see him again -

It must not care.

Once it enters the black egg within the temple, and confronts what awaits it there, it will not feel the approving touch of a slim hand upon its head.

It must not care.

It may, if it positions itself just so, catch a glimpse of the Pale King's face, before the final seals shut the door forever. It is well practiced at angling itself without appearing to move, so that it can follow his movements around the study.

It must not care, even if the King's final expression is that pride it so craves.

It will fulfill its function. It won't feel anything at all.

It calls up the oldest mantra when the King stops outside the shell of the temple. It cannot afford to falter or look back. Not now. There will not be another chance; there will not be another vessel after it.

It must be hollow in truth.

_Do not think._

It shatters the light-lined chains of the previous vessel. A failure; a stopgap measure, left in place to stem the burning tide of the plague after it collapsed.

Its sibling stumbles on tottering feet, drooling golden liquid from its hollow eyes, and _howls._

_Do not speak._

The cry is unearthly. If the King's voice is absolute, an undeniable note, then this is world-rending. The furious force behind the prior vessel's howl knocks the Hollow Knight back half a pace - but it regains its footing and darts forward, drawing on the pure nail's power. It ducks and darts and weaves, lashing out with white spears of light. The old vessel was trained just as it was. It must be perfect. Methodical. Transcendent. There's nothing but the slice of its nail, the tap of its feet flitting from one place to the next logical place to strike, movement that requires no thought, nothing -

Finally, the old vessel's mask splinters into pieces. A hot, burning light pulses in the air over its shoulders before its cyst-riddled body falls away.

The seals pulse, and the Hollow Knight draws the blinding source of the plague into its carapace.

For a moment, it feels nothing all. It centers itself, steps over the shattered mask of its fallen sibling, and waits as the mighty seals of the egg awaken. Across the kingdom, three beings are sacrificing their waking lives to protect it.

It angles its head to look back toward the entrance, and sees the triumph burning in the Pale King's eyes with an electric joy.

And a hot, boiling blade stabs into the Hollow Knight's chest as the infection finds its foothold in its mind. It jerks in place, impaled by something intangible - but it cannot speak. It cannot warn them (as it should have in the tram, in the Palace, _before this_ ), as the chains reform and shoot through the air, threading themselves through the metal anchors of the Knight's armor. Its jerks and spasms of agony as the being within the infection probes its mind go unnoticed as the chains drag it up off its feet into the air. With one brittle hand, it attempts to raise its nail and stab it home - but the plague sears through it, bubbling under the surface of its carapace, and that useless arm falls limp.

_Do not hope._

And it would have been better, it thinks, as that radiant light forces its head to meet the Pale King's eyes, if it had died in the pit. If another had ascended, and it had fallen back into the abyss with its siblings. It is worse than worthless, now. It fights to wrest back control of its body, but only succeeds in cracking its own mask with shuddering force.

"Oh, Wyrm," the infection scrapes out of its aching throat, loud enough to carry through the temple, "it loves you so. 'Aren't you proud, Father?'"

As the door seals shut, the last thing it sees is the Pale King's face fall into horror, and then despair.

-

It cannot stop the Radiance. But it can make it fight for every inch of ground, for every mind it takes. It can hold the line. It can buy them time to - to -

(There is nothing left that they can do.)

It throws its stifled, silent will behind its weight, and roots itself like she would have, for it is also her child. Roots of Void _. No_ , it thinks, but does not say. Its throat bubbles and burns with boiling plague, and if it could not speak before, it will certainly never speak again. 

It will not be enough. It has nothing but the Void within its body; when it grasps and reaches for more, the abyss is so very far away. The years stretch on and on, interminable, and it wants to end. It wants to have told the Pale King it was imperfect; it wants to have died before it could live to fail him in every possible way.

Golden tumors blossom, warping its seal-carved carapace, eating away at its useless arm. Its physical shell means nothing, though, so long as it contains the infection _here_.

(It cannot. But someone else can.)

-

Awareness comes and goes in flickers of black and gold. The infection sunk its bright hooks in the vulnerability that is its mind and usurped it long ago.

\- someone shatters the chains binding it in place -

\- blisters of sickly, orange plague already infect the old crossroads, the seal of the dreamers less than useless -

\- it plunges its dulled nail into its own chest, over and over again in a dizzying frenzy, when the Radiance's focus falters for an instant and it can seize control of its remaining arm -

\- the realm of dreams is incandescent, but it lashes out with what roots remain -

\- and its final sibling pulls _all_ of the Void into perfect accord, and the whole world quakes at the not-sound of their voice.

(Their many eyes are luminous in the darkness.)

-

It wakes up.

It crawls out of the dark.

There is no climb, but every step it crawls is agony. Its left side is a ruin of warped carapace, its shell pitted by the infection and forged anew by Void into a sharp, twisting arabesque. The holes in its chest where the cysts burst and drained let air in, raw and painful against fluttering organs. 

Behind it, the Void tries to draw it back in. The sheer _weight_ of the Void's writhing presence in reality threatens to suck it back into the black egg, to rejoin all of those siblings who've haunted the abyss for so long. They can be perfect. They can be whole, together at last, as they were in the dream.

(The Void does not need to wait any longer. The old gods are dead, and it is **_here_.** )

It has never been very good at perfection, though. It braces itself with what remains of its nail, and drags itself away.

But it thinks, the voice of its own mind weary and faded and thin, that it cannot leave its sibling behind in this abyss.

Not this time.

**Author's Note:**

> [/hums along/](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p532DrDRa5Q)
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> sunderedstar.tumblr.com


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